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BBC Internet Radio on Iphone outside UK

N

neverwhere

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2008
2
0
I have spent some time reading different discussion threads that suggest alternative ways to listen to live radio streams of BBC broadcasts (Radio4 and World service are the two I would love to listen to). There seems to be a few alternatives (FStream and the new iplayer for iphone - I have tried both with no success on my ipod touch) but these both seem to only work when the user is based in the UK. Is there a way of fooling the geo-ip lock that the BBC uses to stop us international listeners (I am in north America) from listening to these streams?

I have been making do with the BBC podcasts but would dearly love to listen to some live streams.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Neverwhere
 
I'm still waiting for the BBC to respond to my query as to why we can't listen to radio programmes abroad using our iPhones when we can do so using any number of other devices including Nokia phones, computers, PDAs, etc. But in the meantime I have read that the Wunder Radio app from the iTunes store will do the trick. Haven't yet tried it myself but may well do so if all else fails.
 
URLs would be great - FStream attempts to connect for me then does nothing. Wrong URLs might be the reason...
 
I decided to try Wunder Radio but sadly it will not connect to BBC radio from abroad. However it will work if I use my VPN connection back to the UK so it should work fine on iPhones in the UK. It's time for the BBC to resolve this IP geo locator problem for those of us using our iPhones abroad as I can listen to BBC radio when abroad on my Nokia phone over WiFi using Real Player.
 
I too have tried both fstream and wunderradio without luck. If anyone has been able to enter correct URL for any of the BBC stations,could you please pass the info along?I have been searching particularly for BBC 7.
 
According to the iPlayer FAQs, BBC radio requires Real Player to be installed if listening outside the UK which effectively means that the iPhone won't work. It would seem that even using programmes like Wunder Radio and Fstream won't solve this as they seem simply to act as a link to the radio station URL which then detects the non UK IP address. As I mentioned above, Wunder Radio will work if I use my VPN tunnel back to my home network, but not otherwise.

I wrote to the BBC about this and their answer was "The iPhone site is still in a beta and the iPhone and iPod touch technology currently does not allow you to listen to radio in BBC iPlayer. We are working to make radio available for the iPhone when we make improvements to the site."

So I guess we may just wait and see what materialises in due course.
 
It is annoying, with my laptop I can listen to the BBC online anywhere in the world (via the Realplayer). If I want to travel light and I only take my iPhone with me, I cannot. The only thing available are the podcasts via the mp3s posted on the BBC's website and they offer a somewhat choice, ie, no news during the weekend.
 
I'm outside the UK and can get some of the BBC stations through Wunder radio. So far, I can get BBC world service News 648 (though only on one of the streams available), BBC radio 5 live (Sports Talk), BBC 5 Live Sports Extra, BBC Radio 6, BBC radio 7 and there may be others that I haven't found yet.

I cant get access to BBC radio 1, 2, 3 or 4 and BBC 5-live is not available during football (soccer) games, but at least it's a start! The app is well worth getting imho.
 
I have tried to LIVE stream bbc stream through orb, but so far no luck.
It might be working for prerecorder programs so it would be possible to listen since they are saved locally as asx/3gp files.
 
tiptopp said:
The BBC have a page containing the urls of lots of their stations, and a tutorial for Fstream.

Works great!

http://www.bbcstreams.com/

Tiptopp
Click to expand...

This is indeed a very useful resource ......except that these urls don't seem to work outside the UK (which is what this thread is about). I tried a couple of them in FStream but no joy. And for whatever reason I can't get FStream to work with any station using my VPN connection back to the UK so I couldn't test the links that way either. So far the only way that I can get BBC radio on my iPhone when abroad is by using Wunder Radio via a VPN connection to the UK. Not bad, I suppose, but it's actually much easier just to use my Nokia E65 which comes with Real Player installed! I use it as my portable WiFi internet radio in my hotel or apartment when travelling, but it would be so much handier to be able to use my iPhone.

P.S. After writing the above, I contacted the BBCStream website via their contact page to ask about access outside the UK and have just got a reply (in less than an hour - very impressive) to say that for the moment it is still not possible to access BBC radio from outside the UK using the iPhone. These streams are for UK use only. However they assure me that this is being worked on as a high priority and they have added my name to their mailing list for notification when it comes on stream.
 
Anybody know if contractual rights for overseas (non UK) local BBC Radio users has been tightened?

Haven't been able to access my (or any) local BBC radio station via WunderRadio or TuneIn for the last couple weeks.

Any ideas?
 
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